This too has "fascinated" me over the years - this moring I felt like doing some Surfing before I really start getting going.

So not in any aprticualr order I've discovered the following stuff. Suffice it to say that the different flavours of PAL are mostly intechangable - it will be the audio and that audio device you use that will "notice" the difference. I can't see much difference. However I've discocered to other PALs you hadn't mentioned PAL_M and PAL_N. This PAL sent over an NTSC transmission! Go figure that one out! Understandable as this in South America where maybe, I don't know, NTSC transmissions from the States - nearby-ish - requires it - don't know.

Here yer go - Knock yerself out - Regards - Grazie:

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PAL (Phase Alternating Line) TV standard was introduced in the early 1960's in Europe. It has better resolution than in NTSC, having 625 lines/frame, but the framerate is slightly lower, being 25 frames/sec.

PAL is used in most of the western European countries (except France, where SECAM is used instead), Australia, some countries of Africa, some countries of South America and in some Asian countries.

There are various versions of PAL, most commonly used method is called PAL B/G, but others include PAL I (used in the UK and in Ireland) and PAL M (weird hybrid standard, which has the same resolution as NTSC has, but uses PAL transmission and color coding technology anyway). All of these standards normally work nicely together, but audio frequencies might vary and therefor you should check that your appliances work in the country you're planning to use them (older PAL B/G TVs can't decode UK's PAL I audio transmissions even that the picture works nicely).


Phase alternate line. A video standard used in Australia and Europe and other parts of the world for composite colour encoding. Various versions of PAL use different scanning systems and colour sub carrier frequencies (identified with the letters B,D,G,H,I,M, and N) the most common being 625 lines at 50 fields per second, with a colour sub carrier of 4.43 MHz. PAL is also said to mean perfect at last


http://www.maksil.com/info_tvtuner_table2.htm - http://www.maksil.com/info_tvtuner_table2.htm

Good descriptions here: Pure Motion Forum:
http://www.puremotion.com/cgi-local/ikonboard/topic.cgi?forum=1&topic=565


http://www.4p8.com/lounge/ntsc.htm
PAL M PAL M
Brazil Only
Unlike other PAL standards, this one has aproximately the same charateristics than NTSC (that is: 525 lines, 60 frames per second).
PAL N PAL N
Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay

Major listing of Countries in the World TV formats
http://www.4p8.com/lounge/ntsc.htm

http://mirror.ati.com/developer/atiddwdm.html
Video Standard Frequency Range (min, max) in MHz
NTSC (North America) (54.0, 801.25)
NTSC (Japan) (54.0, 801.25)
PAL_B (45.0, 855.25)
PAL_D (45.0, 855.25)
PAL_G (45.0, 855.25)
PAL_I (45.0, 855.25)
PAL_M (54.0, 801.25)
PAL_N (54.0, 801.25)
SECAM_B (45.0, 855.25)
SECAM_D (45.0, 855.25)
SECAM_K (45.0, 855.25)
SECAM_L (45.0, 855.25)

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